Bandwidth is a resource of communication and is measured as available and consumed data, expressed as bits/sec. It is used as a parameter to determine the condition/capacity of channel/communication link.
Bandwidth is a central concept in many fields, including information theory, radio communications, signal processing, and spectroscopy. The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time, expressed in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second. For example:                a. V.90 modem supports a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 56 Kbps. Fast Ethernet supports a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 100 Mbps. Same way,        b. The range of frequencies within which the performance of the antenna, with respect to some characteristics, conforms to a specified standard. (2.4-2.5 GHz antenna has 100 MHz bandwidth).        
A communication link has its own bandwidth. Reduction in bandwidth decreases the data rate of the link; this can cause the loss of information. Information loss degrades the quality of the application hence degrades the Quality of Service (QoS). Whereas increase in bandwidth enhances the data rates and improves the quality of service, reduces download and upload data transmission time.
The goal of Quality of Service (QoS) is to provide a guarantee on the ability of a network to deliver predictable results. Elements of network performance within the scope of QoS often include availability (uptime), bandwidth (throughput), latency (delay), and error rate. QoS involves prioritization of network traffic.
Particularly, aggregating the bandwidths of the multiple physical layers associated with different physical interfaces and performing communication with different communication links of wired and wireless network increases overall bandwidth of the system. Some of the prior arts known to us that address the technical problem related bandwidth aggregation are given below:
U.S. Pat. No. 7,805,156 by Allen et al teaches system and method for the dynamic aggregation of communication network bandwidth. The said prior art requires a control network and a network controller to perform bandwidth aggregation. It needs specific network architecture like a combination of control network, payload network, and an egress network for the aggregation.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,336,605 by Bruckman et al teaches a method for establishing a connection with a guaranteed bandwidth for transmitting data over a logical link that includes a plurality of parallel physical links between first and second endpoints. The said prior art requires service level agreement, and the aggregation is based on link layer—using link aggregation group in accordance with IEEE standard 802.3, wherein the link aggregation is performed by a separate system, and requires a central controller system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,879,590 by Pedersen et al teaches a method, apparatus and system facilitating the aggregation or bonding of physical communication links into higher-bandwidth logical links. The said prior art performs link layer based aggregation. It also uses a link bonding engine which has a counter component both at transmitting and receiving side. It further modifies the data-link frame size and introduces super frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,720,098 by Allen et al teaches a method for dynamic bandwidth expansion for wireless clients in a wireless wide-area network (WWAN). The said prior art requires a communication manager to manage traffic between the pool clients, it further needs aggregation server which exposes packet information from each packet containing the data and re-sequences the packets before transmitting the data to the external network, and requires specific network architecture using wireless communication.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,260,651 by Parrella et al teaches a system and method for increasing the effective bandwidth of a communication network provided by overlaying a “super” transport and caching structure over the conventional TCP/IP communications network. The said prior art does not perform bandwidth aggregation using multiple physical interfaces. It describes a method for compressing data by a first computer system for transferring to a second computer system via a communications network, further creating a virtual private network (requiring at least two computer systems, connected over a communication link) and needs a corresponding module at the final end.
United States Patent Application Number 2003078964 by Parrella et al teaches a system and method for reducing the time to deliver information from a communications network to a user. The said prior art does not perform bandwidth aggregation using multiple interfaces. It performs caching of data for use by the application or browser, distributes selected data from a host server across a plurality of caches on a communications network. It uses specific network architecture and establishes a VPN (Virtual private network).
United States Patent Application Number 20050015511 by Izmailov et al teaches a method and apparatus for dynamically discovering and utilizing unused resources for practical and efficient creation of optimized network mechanisms for data distribution. The said prior art requires specific network architecture to perform the bandwidth enhancement. It is based on network layer and application layer, but not completely on application layer.
United States Patent Application Number 2010202310 by Lee et al teaches a bandwidth aggregation system for providing wideband communication services by aggregating multiple bandwidths. The said prior art requires a corresponding module at the destination to perform bandwidth aggregation to compute weights of the multiple bandwidths. It is applicable for base station and mobile system and it is typically used the resource allocation mechanism of a wireless network.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,973,504 by Nomura et al teaches a method and a system enabling reduction in the required resource for the bandwidth reservation in an inter-site connection network used for communication between communication sites. The said prior art requires a specific network system and paths are aggregated with respect to a user site of interest, having an allocated bandwidth smaller than a second user site.
United States Patent Application Number 20100011230 by Mater et al provides configurations and techniques for determining, by link aggregation logic, whether a load of network traffic communicated across a team of aggregated links allows inactivation of one or more aggregated links of the team, wherein the team of aggregated links is coupled with a plurality of network interface cards (NICs). The said prior art performs the load balancing by inactivation of one or more aggregated links of the team; and power off or place into a power save mode one or more of the plurality of NICs corresponding to the one or more aggregated links.
Magalhaes et al in “Transport Level Mechanisms for Bandwidth Aggregation on Mobile Hosts” teaches a solution for channel aggregation at the transport layer, which provides increased bandwidth to mobile nodes. The said prior art requires corresponding module at the destination node and works for mobile environment.
Chebrolu et al in “Bandwidth Aggregation for Real-Time Applications in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks” have disclosed a variety of wireless interfaces that are available for mobile user to access Internet content. The said prior art requires a network layer architecture consisting of an infrastructure proxy for performing the bandwidth aggregation.
Taleb et al in “A Bandwidth Aggregation-Aware QoS Negotiation Mechanism for Next-Generation Wireless Networks” have disclosed a bandwidth aggregation-aware QoS negotiation mechanism that enables users to dynamically negotiate their desired service levels and to reach them through the use of bandwidth aggregation. The said prior art uses bandwidth aggregation based on the service level agreement and packet reordering.
Some of the lacunae that exists in the prior art discussed above are that, firstly they discloses systems and methods which require specific network architecture like a combination of control network, payload network, and an egress network. Secondly most of the prior arts also require a control network and a network controller to perform bandwidth aggregation, and need service level agreement, counter or corresponding module/component and a network proxy to perform bandwidth aggregation. Thirdly some of them perform bandwidth allocation and management but not the bandwidth aggregation. Finally these approaches also do not make use of any application layer for bandwidth aggregation.
Thus there exists a need to address the long standing problem of achieving bandwidth aggregation of multiple active physical interfaces based on application layer without using any specific network architecture, proxy system, service level agreement, or network control system placed between the source and destination, importantly without using any corresponding module or component at the final end.